Nicole burst through the door of Faneuil Hall and found the nearest fire alarm. She pulled it down, and the scant handful of shoppers and employees present all started to leave as the alarm blared. After that, she flew through the hall, into each shop, checking every corner and crevice in search of anything that resembled a bomb. Dread speared her at every inch as her lightheadedness slowly crept back up; every foot she crossed on her broom brought her closer to burnout. 

The mall was quiet, and so she listened. There was a dearth of sound, no ticking clock, no obvious indicators. But it had to be somewhere. 

Supply closets! She thought. She checked all of them. 

Basement! She descended the stairs into it, and found nothing. 

What does that leave? If it’s not in the shops or closets or basements… THE ROOF!

She flew through the open door and banked a ninety-degree angle turn. She aimed for the roof, for the grasshopper statue that punctuated the dome of the ceiling. What appeared to be C4 explosives were duct-taped to the grasshopper. Nicole lunged for it. UNBELIEVABLE! GOING AFTER A CITY LANDMARK! What’s even the point of this, Winona? You have to know by now you’re not gonna win this!

Nicole floated before the bomb and twitched her fingers, the timer counting down with thirty seconds remaining. No time for subtlety, she ripped through the duct tape and shot into the sky in a pastel pink trail of light. She chucked the bomb into the air as high as she could, then banked one last turn and aimed for the ground. 

She registered the shockwave before she heard the noise. It brushed her back and knocked her from her broom before the massive blast of noise pollution infected the air. She fell for a few feet before hitting the ground, landing on her shoulder and hearing something pop. Pain cried out from her muscles as she held the bruising shoulder in place. She forced out a spark of pink light, and her shoulder popped into place… 

Only for her uniform to dissolve into pink ribbons and fade away. 

“NO!” she cried! “No, not now! There’s still more bombs! There’s-”

“There’s what?” a familiar voice came from behind her. 

Nicole’s eyes bulged with panic. She swallowed a deep gulp, then turned around and found Aidan marching towards her. 

He smiled with all his fangs plain to see, black wings outstretched, eyes solid black. “How you doing, hot stuff?”

Nicole cringed. “Ew.”

“What, you don’t like what you see? How about this instead?” he said, and his wings vanished, and his eyes turned normal, and his fangs retracted and left human-teeth in place. “Am I hot enough for you now?”

“Aidan, you disgust me on a primal level,” Nicole said flatly. “Tell me where the other bombs are or kill me, or just let me walk away. I’m not dealing with your nonsense right now.”

“Okay,” Aidan shrugged. 

“... Okay to what?”

“I’ll tell you where the bombs are,” Aidan chirped. “IF you agree to something.”

“I’m not sleeping with you, Aidan.”

“Dammit. But, I understand. We had a rough first couple of encounters, I get why you’d be apprehensive. Don’t really get what you see in Ames of all people, but whatever, sometimes people make bad choices,” Aidan said, continuing to march forward. “How about some fisticuffs instead?

Nicole stood her ground. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” Aidan said, standing only a few feet away. “Just talkin’ ‘bout a good ol’ fashioned bare-knuckle brawl. No powers, no tricks, nothing. If you can get me to not get back up, I’ll tell you where the bombs are.”

Nicole spat in his face. “I don’t have time for this. Good-bye.”

But before she could turn to leave, Aidan threw the first punch. Nicole dodged and assumed a fighting stance, hands keeping her face shielded, and before she knew it, the two of them were boxing in the middle of the street.

***

Cass ripped the bomb from the basement of Paul Revere’s house and launched it as far into the air as her telekinesis could push. Feeling ambitious, she kept the explosion caged, and blocked every ripple of the concussive force.

 She floated in the air above the landmark, then turned to the direction of Fenway Park and shot across the sky. 

When she got there, Winona was standing on the field, holding the bomb in her hands, tossing it up and down into the air like it was a baseball. Each time, she nearly dropped it because her hands were shaking, but she just barely stabilized her grip before it slipped away. “You know, when Aidan tried to pull me away from you fruitcakes, I was pissed. But then I remembered there was one last wrinkle to my plan- I would’ve totally forgotten if he hadn’t calmed me down! Such a sweet boy-”

Cass reached for the bomb using her telekinesis, but Winona’s grip held tight. 

“Careful now, Cass- the delicate touch is needed when handling C4,” Winona wagged a finger while cackling at her. “But you’ve never had that in your life, have you?”

“I gotta question for you, White,” Cass said, lowering herself onto the field and stepping off her broom. 

“Ayuh?” Winona asked, tilting her head to the side, breathing heavily. 

“How long have you been doing this?” Cass demanded. 

“What, sending out monsters, harvesting Soul Energy? Five years now. That first monster you fought was the result of me not liking that issue of a comic, so I put a demon in it and then realized it would be a great way to execute my master plan.”

“Ayuh?” Cass echoed. “And how’s that worked out for you so far, perra?”

“Closer to my goals than you are,” Winona said, caressing the bomb in her trembling hands, fighting back tears, licking her lips obsessively. “I mean, at least I have them. I’ve been watching you long enough to know that you have no idea what you’re doing with your life and you never will. That’s who you are, Cassandra. You react. You’re reactive. No ambition, no agency, no initiative of your own. You just flail around trying to deal with whatever life throws at you. It’s no way to live.”

“I…,” Cass started. Dammit, that’s all true. FUCK!

“Mmmm gotcha, didn’t I?”

Cass grunted. “I believe in taking things one step at a time,” she said. “Right now, you’re the next step.”

Cass flicked her wrist, and home plate shot from the ground and through the air like a discus, nailing Winona in the back of the head. Her grip loosened on the bomb, and Cass reached with her telekinesis and fired it two hundred feet in the air. She clapped her hands together, and twin walls of force slammed into the explosive and crushed it. The noise howled in the air as the fireball faded in the sky above. 

Winona glared at her. 

“Big game here tonight,” Cass said, looking around. “I think the Sox have a real shot at winning it all this year.”

“That so?” Winona giggled. “Well, the competition is pretty stiff, so I dunno if I’d say they’re a shoe-in or nothin’.”

“Yeah, well, gotta root for the home team, otherwise what’s the point?”

“Being on the winning side?”

“Ah. A fair weather fan, I see,” Cass said. “You only care about what’s in front of you when it’s convenient, huh?”

Winona scowled. “That’s not true.”

“The only reason you’re not going full scorched earth right now is because your boyfriend convinced you not to,” Cass said. “Admit it, you don’t really care about anything, do you? You just wanna be right, and you wanna make people fear you so they’ll never tell you you’re wrong. God, you’re just like my mother.”

“How dare you?!” Winona screeched, wings erupting from her back. She shot through the air towards Cass, and Cass fired back with as large a telekinetic blast as she could manage. 

The nephilim was launched backwards and tore through the green walls of the baseball park, leaving a canyon of debris and destruction as she landed. Cass summoned her broom and flew into the air. No time for this, couldn’t stop to fight Winona, had to find the other bombs, no matter how much Winona pissed her off. 

A blue-white streak ripped across the sky and caught up to her. Winona floated in front of her, glaring, shaking, panting. “I’ve been trying to keep you alive because you’re useful. Those Prophecies of yours would give me a leg-up in the war for the throne. But I’ve decided you’re not worth it. You and all the others besides Amy- I’m just gonna rip you limb from limb, and I’M GONNA HAVE FUN DOING IT!”

Cass wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she just gave Winona the middle finger. 

Winona howled with psychotic, animalistic rage and threw the first punch. Cass blocked it and threw her own. 

The fight began mid-air. Debris floated up from the city around them as they traded blows.

***

“Bomb squad is here, dealing with the C4 behind the chapel,” Debbi said as she entered the room. “How’s it going in… Here…”

Amy wasn’t sure which part of the scene her sister was thrown by, though she suspected it was that she was giving Zack a manicure while Father Gonzalez and Sister Quinn exorcized a demon from him… Or her? Hard to say at the moment. “Hey, sis.”

“Hey. What… What’s going on here?” 

“I’m helping.”

“No you’re not!” the demon said. 

“Oh hush, you, we’re not talking to you. And I was having a lovely conversation with Zack.”

“Zack isn’t here right now- GAH!” the demon screamed as smoke began billowing from his eyes. 

Debbi groaned. “You’re giving a demon a manicure while all this shit is happening!?”

“I’m helping Nicole’s sister break free of the chains of internalized self-loathing,” Amy said as she filed Zack’s nails. 

“... What?!”

“Look, our powers aren’t working, and none of us know how to defuse a bomb,” Amy said. “My… Well, my crush it out there fighting the good fight, and so is our sister. We’re here, and the only thing I can think of to help right now is this.”

Zack’s hands began glowing white again. 

“See,” Amy said. “That mani-glow. I’m just about to start putting on the lacquer.”

“I…,” Debbi stuttered. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

“Do whatever you want, Debbi, you know I trust your judgment,” Amy said. “And you’re in charge now, so if you think I should stop, I will.”

“... Proceed for the time being.”

“Sweet!” Amy said. “I got this shade of red from one of the ladies in the church… Real nice woman named Barbara, great hair, killer cheekbones, ass that won’t quit… God, I never realized how pretty girls were before, at least not consciously. Do you know what I mean, Zack? Before I met your big sister, I was a blind, bigoted idiot who freaked out and got angry whenever I met a girl hotter than me. But Nicole changed all that for me. She helped me, even when she didn’t have to. I felt guilty about the idea of pursuing a relationship with her at first, see, because I had hurt her. And I know she was apprehensive at first too because of that. But we spent a lot of time together and… I dunno, we just clicked. Sometimes, you just have chemistry with someone and it gets more and more so the more time you spend together. It’s magical. But I knew that I had to accept myself for who I really was before I could be with her. I couldn’t do it for her, because then I’d have a different problem. It had to be for me- I had to accept that I was queer on my own terms, learn to love myself before I could truly be with someone else-”

The demon thrashed and hissed as more and more black smoke filtered out. “I DON’T CARE! JUST MAKE THIS STOP-”

“Why, because Zack is enjoying this?” 

“No, he’s mortified!” And yet his hands glowed white again. 

“Zack, it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Amy said. “It can just be a one time thing if you want. Or it could be more than that, if that’s what you want. At first I thought Nicole was an exception for me, but I thought about it and realized that damn, girls are pretty.”

“Wait,” Debbi said, “Is Zack-”

“Yeah, the demon kept howling about how Zack is a T-word and how that shame will keep him caged forever,” Amy said. “So I started talking about girly stuff and self-love and queer acceptance and then the demon started pouring out.”

Sister Quinn threw another splash of Holy Water on Zack’s chest, and the demon screamed as the white glowing grew stronger and stronger.  

“Plus, Zack, you know your sister is awesome, right?” Amy said. “She’s literally a paragon superhero. But lemme guess, you’re more into edgy antiheroes? Tell you what, if you ever join our team, you can be the edgiest little antihero you want. Doesn’t that sound fun? Something to look forward to once this is all over. But for now…”

Amy retrieved the vial of red nail polish and grabbed Zack’s left hand and held it in place while she started applying the lacquer. 

“AHHHHHH!” the demon screamed. 

“C… Can I do his right hand?” Debbi asked. 

“Sure!” Amy smiled. 

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

***

Nicole buried a fist in Aidan’s gut. The wind rushed out his mouth, and Nicole grabbed the back of his head and slammed his face into her knee, then struck him across the head and knocked him over. She pounced to start wailing on him, hockey-fight style, but he rolled out of the way and then kicked her in the ribs. 

“So, how’s things with you and Ames, then?” Aidan asked. 

Nicole didn’t respond. 

He jabbed, jabbed, hooked, jabbed, while Nicole danced around his blows and kept her guard up like Heather had taught her. “That good, huh?”

He landed a blow across her chin. She couldn’t keep letting him distract her. She needed to get him to stop focusing on her and on-

THAT’S IT!

“Actually,” Nicole said as she blocked three punches then side-stepped a roundhouse kick. “It’s going great. We kissed for the first time last night.”

“No shit, seriously?” Aidan asked, smiling as she landed an uppercut to his chin. “That’s great!”

Nicole punched him again. “Seriously?”

“Well yeah,” Aidan said, dodging around a fire hydrant. “I want you to be happy, Nicole.”

“Well, I’m very happy! Amy is amazing and I want her to be my girlfriend!”

“Then go for it!” he said as he twirled around a stop sign and delivered a blow to her nose. “I mean, I don’t get what you see in Amy, but if she makes you happy then I’m happy.”

Nicole stumbled back and nearly tripped over the fire hydrant. She blocked a flurry of punches from Aidan, went low and struck him in the chest, then kicked him in the balls. “Okay, seriously, what gives?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you trying to be nice to me- you do get that you’re not getting into my pants, right?” 

He breathed in desperately as he backed up and fended off Nicole’s rapid stream of jabs and hooks. “Why not? Amy did, and she did something way worse!”

“Are you freaking kidding me? What Amy did is nothing compared to you! You did every bad thing she did, and YOU’RE LITERALLY A SUPERVILLAIN!”

“Yeah, but don’t girls find that hot?”

“Not! This! GIRL!” Nicole said, landing a punch to Aidan’s eye that made him cry out and fall on his back. 

“Okay, okay, fair enough,” Aidan said, clutching his eye and staying on the ground. 

He went for Nicole’s ankles, pulling them out from under her and toppling her onto the cold pavement. He lunged, and she kneed him in the balls again. 

She made it onto her knees when Aidan threw a punch. She threw one as well, and they both knocked each other over. 

Aidan coughed up blood and spat out a tooth. “But I’m telling you, I can change.”

“I know,” Nicole said, heaving deep breaths as she tried to ignore the ocean of pain she was swimming in. “But I still won’t be with you. Okay, Aidan? Do you get it? It’s not gonna happen.”

“... You… You really think I can change?”

“... What? Yeah, of course. Anyone can change.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Once again, not gonna sleep with you.”

“You say that now, but I really think once I prove myself to you-”

“Aidan!”

“You’ll see me in a different light. I mean seriously, if a catty, annoying, self-obsessed nymphomaniac fucking loser like Amy has a shot-”

Nicole hook-punched him again, knocking out another tooth. “YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT!”

She struck him again, again, again, again, making him bleed all over the street. Eventually, he stopped trying to get up. His chest heaved up and down as he groped for breath. “Okay, okay. I give. I yield. The other other bombs are under the Church, under the classroom we have that class with Debbi in, and under TD Garden.”

“The TD GARDEN! You MONSTER!”

“Lemme make it up to you- just tell me how. What can I do to make it up to you!?”

Nicole’s face contorted with anger and disbelief. This freaking clown… “Turn yourself in. Go to the police, confess to everything. That’s how you START to make this up to me.”

“Okay,” Aidan said. “Okay. I will. I’ll turn myself in. Now get out of here before the other bombs start going off, ayuh?”

“Ayuh,” Nicole grunted. She started limping away, clearing two blocks before she saw a taxi and hailed it. “TD Garden. Step on it. Also, do you have a phone I can borrow?”

***

“Okay, the bomb upstairs is disarmed,” Heather said as she came down the stairs, “Everyone is out of the church, and Abe is dealing with the police- what’s going on here?”

“We’re helping,” Amy and Debbi said simultaneously. 

Amy gripped Zack’s hand in place while she finished lacquering his/her/their nails. The demon was pouring out of them in a continuous, albeit very slow, stream while their body thrashed about and Father Gonzalez and Sister Quinn recited the final verses of the exorcism rite. “Oh, hold still, would you? We’re almost done.”

“NEVER!” the demon said. 

“How is this helping?” Heather asked. 

“It’s because we’re pretty sure Zack is an egg,” Amy said. 

“What do you mean an egg?” Debbi asked.

“A trans person who hasn’t realized they’re trans yet,” Amy said. “I’ve reading up, so I don’t have to constantly bombard Nicole with inappropriate questions.”

“Ah, fair enough,” Heather said. “I mean… Is it working-”

The last plumes of black smoke erupted from Zack’s face. The white Light around his hands shifted into a neon pink hue, consumed his eyes, and shot up into the sky in a massive beam of light. 

“Is… Is she hatching?” Debbi asked. 

“It remains to be seen,” Amy said. “But hey, we’re here for them, no matter what happens. It’ll all be okay. Just gotta have faith.”

“Hey, the thought occurs,” Debbi said.

“What thought?”

“You know how our powers work better, I mean us two specifically, when we’re getting along?”

“Yeah, of course,” Amy said. 

“If Nicole’s… Sibling also has the Holy Power, than do you think-”

***

Nicole cleared out of the TD Garden while the bomb squad did their job. She’d made her way inside and pulled the fire alarm as soon as she arrived, and then the sirens closed in on the building so she made her retreat. Just two more, just two more-

The pink marble of Holy Power nestled between her heart and her shield sang a heavenly song as she burst with renewed strength and energy. A pastel pink aura exploded out of her bones, and all the aches and pains were shooed away. She felt like she’d slept twelve hours on the softest bed in the universe, then had the most nourishing breakfast imaginable. Before she knew it, she’d transformed again, all her wounds healed and her broom in hand. 

“What the Blue Blazes?” she said. 

And then an explosion shook the air. 

“Oh boy,” she said as she took flight. 

***

Cass tore through the air, dodging blue missiles of Angelic Energy as the sky exploded around her. She dove and wove and twisted and spun as her far more nimble, winged opponent gave chase. She flew into the air, but this simply caused Winona to aim a missile down at the ground below, towards the civilians slowly petering out of the wreckage of last night’s incident. Tears were in the nephilim’s eyes as she did so.

“NO!” Cass screamed as Winona pooled the blue energy in her hands and readied herself to fire. She used her telekinesis to yank Winona’s hand up towards the sky, and the missile fired into the blue above. It exploded like a firework, and Cass swung her hands wildly to her left side and tossed Winona towards the ocean. 

Winona spread her wings and slowed herself until finally she stopped outright and launched back towards Cass. She swung glowing blue fists at Cass and fired off more and more blasts, and Cass went high into the sky. The further away she could keep Winona from the ground, the better-

Which of course meant Winona aimed her missiles at the ground again. 

“SHIT!” Cass screamed as she tried to pull Winona’s aim out of the way again. Her wrists groaned with hideous pain as she tried to lock in on Winona’s hands, to no avail. 

The missile launched. 

Cass dive-bombed at Winona: if her abilities were too much to use right now, she could at least rely on brute force. She had to keep this monster from hurting anyone else. So many lives had been extinguished by this bitch, and countless more had been ruined forever. It had to stop, and Cass had to be the one to stop it. 

The missile closed in on the ground… 

Only for a pink rocket to collide with it, absorbing and nullifying the entirety of the blast. 

Nicole emerged from the glittering afterimage and shot at a stunned Winona, swinging a fist and slamming it into Winona’s face. Cass whooped and laughed as she closed in and delivered her own punch to Winona’s lower back. The nephilim was pushed in two directions and cried out in blunt pain as she dropped towards the city below. 

Cass started to fly down towards the falling nephilim, but Nicole caught her shoulder and gave her an infusion of Pink Light. 

“Are you sure?” Cass asked. 

“Oh yeah,” Nicole said. “I dunno about you, but I feel amazing!”

As the Healing Power surged through her and took away all the physical pain, Cass said, “I feel okay.”

She extended a hand and stopped Winona’s fall before she hit the ground. She pulled her back, and the nephilim screamed as she was ripped back upwards into the air like a ragdoll. 

“Yield,” Cass said. 

“Or what?” Winona spat, trying to rip herself free like she was caught in a bear trap. Her tears were flowing freely now, her hands shaking so much not even Cass’ telekinesis could contain it. “You won’t kill me- you don’t have it in you.”

“You’re right, we won’t,” Cass shrugged. “But we will beat the ever-living shit out of you.”

“Oh please, no you-”

Cass slapped her. Then punched her in the face. Then the gut. Then Nicole punched her. Then they took turns beating her up as Cass held her in place with her telekinesis. Finally, when that was over, and Winona was bruised and bloody, Cass wound up her fists and threw Winona into the ocean. 

The red and pink rockets shot through the air and were upon Winona as soon as she was out of the water. Invigorated with Nicole’s power, Cass pulled up waves and riptides, buffeting Winona with her worst fear, while Nicole delivered blow after blow to her face and body. 

Winona fought back, throwing punches and launching blue missiles, but Nicole blocked all of them with her nigh-limitless shield. They pushed her further and further out onto the water, clearing the coast’s line of sight before the sun had finished rising. 

Winona began to fall, nearly hitting the water’s surface once again, her eyes glazed over, her wings and halo fading. Cass caught her with her telekinesis, and Winona didn’t even try to resist. She convulsed as her tears turned to outright sobs.

“Okay, I yield,” the bleeding, broken nephilim said. 

“Bullshit,” Cass said, raising a wall of water around her. 

“Cass,” Nicole said. “Let’s hear her out.”

“Wh- are you shitting me?!” Cass said. 

“No. I’m not,” Nicole said. “The whole original plan was to talk to her- I wasn’t exactly in the headspace to do that last night, so maybe now’s the-”

“SHE KILLED MY MOM!”

“No, I didn’t,” Winona said. “The Sin-Eater did. That wasn’t even my idea.”

“Oh, like I’m just supposed to believe you?” Cass said, the walls of ocean growing taller and wider around the three of them. Within seconds, a box had formed around them, sunlight struggling to filter in through the dozens of feet of water. “After everything you’ve done, you think I know there isn’t a single depravity you won’t sink to?! All the people you’ve hurt and killed, barely giving a thought to them!”

The box started to close in on them, and Winona started hyperventilating as she realized Cass planned to put her in a literal watery grave. She would bury this bitch and leave all her anger to drift out into the sea, sink into the depths and… 

And… 

And drag Cass down with her.

This was no different then with the Sin-Eater. But what was she supposed to do? How did she fix all this?

“Cass,” Nicole said. “I know you’re angry. And you’ve every right to be. But this isn’t the way.”

“... Then what is?”

“I guess that’s up to her,” Nicole said, gesturing to the sobbing, convulsing wreck Winona had been reduced too.

“Abba, please help me, help me, help me,” Winona muttered over and over and over again. She looked like she was having a panic attack, eyes darting everywhere but seeing nothing, and hands… Hands trembling. 

That was when Cass looked down and saw her own hands were trembling as well. 

“FUCK!” Cass screamed. Then, softening, she said, “Fuck.” The walls of water collapsed into the ocean. She knew what to do. Her sister had shown her how. She just hoped she was strong enough to go through with it. “Hey, Winona- can you name five objects around you and their colors?”

“W… What?” Winona asked between sobs. 

“C’mon, perra, at least give it a shot.”

“I… I mean we’re out on the water, but… Uh… There’s a white boat over there, and a red blimp overhead. And you guys are wearing red and pink dresses and hats. And, uh, my shoes are… Are black.”

Cass sighed. She noticed all the same things. And her own hands had stopped shaking. “Okay, now describe the water around you. Your own words.”

“It’s… It’s terrifying. It takes me back to my most horrible memories-”

“No, not like that.”

“... It’s… It’s blue and silver, and its cold and wet… Obviously it’s wet. It’s like a sheen of liquid death washing over me, threatening to never let me go-”

“And in the sky?”

“White, puffy clouds. A cerulean canopy. A… A shining sun. Like a diamond Grandfather hung there for us to love.”

They went on like that for a while, until Winona’s hands finally stopped trembling. 

“The ocean isn’t here to hurt you, Winona,” Nicole said. 

“I… I know. It’s silly to think that is, but I… God, it just scares me. Everything scares me. Everyone leaves me. Nothing ever works out. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“It’s okay, Winona,” Nicole said. “Everyone has to start over sometimes.”

“But I’m a monster!”

“Yes,” Nicole agreed. “You are. But to stop being a monster, you have to start somewhere. Do you want this to be that moment for you? Do you want to be better?”

“I… I’m tired of being this,” Winona whispered. “Everything’s gone to shit. Aidan doesn’t want me anymore. He says he does, but I can tell when he looks at me, he… He’d rather be looking at you. And I just… Isn’t it too late for me?”

Nicole said, “Didn’t you say that God forgave the Devil himself? Accepted him back into Heaven?”

“Only after six thousand years in Hell,” Winona said. 

Cass shrugged and said, “Gotta start somewhere.”

Winona… Winona nodded.

Cass released her. 

By the time they got her to a police precinct, Aidan was there as well, already in handcuffs. Nicole and Cass watched as the cops started processing the nephilim and the cambion on domestic terrorism charges, until finally, Nicole said, “Let’s go home.”

***

The ride home was uneventful. Nicole wasn’t sure how to process any of what had happened that day- she’d convinced two supervillains to turn themselves in, but… It all felt off. The spike of power she’d gotten earlier had faded, and she and Cass had both un-transformed once they’d gotten clear of the precinct out of sheer exhaustion. They hailed a cab and went back to the church, where they found their friends waiting for them. Father Gonzalez and Bishop Roberts and Sister Quinn and Abe and Heather and Matt and Debbi and Amy and even Zack waited outside, and ran over to the two of them as they slowly walked back. 

Matt practically scooped up a blushing Cass into his arms, and Debbi and Heather and Amy quickly turned it into a group hug. 

Leaving Zack standing before Nicole. 

His hair had gotten even lighter, from its previous dark blonde to more a sandy brown with some blonde streaks. His face was softened and smooth, his shoulders reduced and rounded, and his height had been shaved down at least a few inches. And his nails were filed and painted cherry red.

“Hey… Nicole,” Zack said. His voice had shot up in pitch, back to his prepubescent register.

“Hey… Kiddo,” Nicole said. “Is that an okay thing to call you? What should I-”

“Just… Still just Zack for now, okay?” he asked. “That stuff you said to me, it… I don’t know how much of it was… I don’t know if I’m… If this is… Is s-s-some kind of m-mistake. It has to be some kind of-”

Nicole didn’t let him finish. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, and didn’t ever want to let him go again. “Shhh,” she said. “It’s okay. It’ll all be okay. You don’t have to decide anything just yet. If you still wanna be Zack for right now, that’s okay. Okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered back. “I love you, sis.”

“Love you too, kid. Love you too. Why don’t you call us an Uber and we’ll go back to my place and figure the rest out, okay?”

Zack nodded, then went off to order the car. 

Amy pulled herself out of the group hug and then slammed into Nicole, holding her tight and burying her face in her neck. 

“Were you the one who painted Zack’s nails?” Nicole asked.

“Yeah, I was,” Amy said. 

“That was clever.”

“Heh. Thanks.”

“It alright if they stay with us for a few days? Just while I sort things out with my parents?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I can sleep on the couch-”

“No, no you can stay in my room,” Nicole said. 

Amy blushed, then giggled. “You know, you’ve changed a lot since we first met.”

“For the better?”

“Yeah, and you were already pretty great,” Amy smiled.

“Thank you. You’ve changed a lot too.”

“For the better?”

“Yeah,” Nicole said, “And there was always plenty to love. I see that now.”

She went in for the kiss, and Amy’s lips met hers beneath the light of God’s sun, and life began to move on as they held each other up with their affection. No matter what else had happened that day, no matter what else happened going forward, they had that moment, and they had each other.